Amelia (The Sly and Hokey Detective Series #1)

Copyright property of Anna Ryan 2018.

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Anna X

SLY AND HOKEY – AMELIA

"I’ve got them all but one,

Once there were three,

And soon there’ll be none."

Part One: Amelia

Prologue – Friday 8th May 2015

At 3pm Amelia Myer got home.

At 3:05pm Amelia Myer had something to eat.

At 3:30pm Amelia Myer used the WC and grabbed her phone and a bottle of water.

At 4:15pm Amelia Myer was reported missing.

Chapter one

1

‘When was the last time you saw your daughter, Mr Myer?’ Sly asked in a very serious tone.

‘This morning just before I left for work,’ Grant Myer replied promptly.

‘And what time would that have been?’

‘I should say about 8am or so.’

‘Can you be any more specific?’ Sly asked.

‘Sorry,’ Grant Myer replied quickly, shaking his head.

‘What about you, Mrs Myer?’ Hokey asked. Mrs Myer was staying awfully silent which didn’t sit well with Hokey. ‘When did you last see your daughter?’

‘I came home for lunch at about 12:30pm, and she was in the kitchen. I asked what she was doing and she said she was going back to work,’ Mrs Myer said with her eyes diverted downwards. When she spoke, she did not look at anyone – Hokey found this rather odd; as well as the fact that neither of them was overly emotional or concerned about their daughter’s wellbeing.

‘Where did Amelia work?’ Sly asked making a note on his notepad.

‘She worked part-time at one of the local stores,’ supplied Evelyn Myer rather vaguely.

‘Are you able to give us the name of the store and her employer, Mrs Myer?’ Hokey asked.

‘Sorry...’ Evelyn Myer obviously did not want to disclose such information. Uninterested parents, Hokey thought, or parents hiding something? She and Sly would definitely get to the bottom of it.

‘Did Amelia have any enemies? Or did she mention anyone that might wish harm to come to her?’ Sly asked.

‘What about a boyfriend?’ Hokey added on. ‘They can cause a while heap of complication in a girl’s life.’

Grant and Evelyn Myer both shook their heads, no. Maybe they knew the answer, maybe they didn’t.

‘Did Amelia leave a note or anything?’ Hokey asked, ‘Maybe saying that she was going out to meet a friend?’

Grant and Evelyn Myer again shook their heads and remained silent.

‘We have noticed that the only personal item Amelia took with her was her mobile phone. Have you tried to call or text her? Or has she tried to call or text you?’ Hokey asked. Hokey had a special recording device in her hand to record the conversation. Sly was a note taker whereas Hokey preferred to record the audio if all of her informal interviews in case she missed a minor detail.

‘We have both tried calling her, and we have sent countless text messages but haven’t received a reply.’

‘Okay,’ said Sly standing up from the couch, ‘that will be all for now. Hokey and I will be back tomorrow for a formal statement from the both of you. In the meantime, if you think of anything else at all, please ring either me or Hokey at any time of the day or night.’ Sly handed them their card with all their contact details.

‘Or if you have any questions – any at all, don’t hesitate to call us.’ Hokey added.

Grant and Evelyn Myer nodded and ushered Sly and Hokey out of their home.

2

‘What do you think of those two?’ Sly asked Hokey as they got into their police car. ‘Guilty? Worried parents? Parents in shock, perhaps?’

Hokey thought about this for a moment as Sly pulled out from the side of the road. ‘From what we have both seen just now, I would say that they are most definitely hiding something. What it is, I have no idea. They probably are worried, though probably not so much about Amelia. I’m certain they’re hiding something, though.’

‘I agree with you on that one, Hokes,’ Sly said. ‘In all of the cases I have been involved in where kids go missing, even if the parents are guilty, they will either be crying uncontrollably, in hysterics or in some form of severe shock. Old Grant and Evelyn Myer are a different breed altogether.’

‘You got that right,’ Hokey agreed.

‘Tomorrow we will bring Grant and Evelyn to the station for a formal interview and statement; definitely no later than tomorrow. Until then, when we get back to the office, we will give a briefing to our team and go from there.’

When they arrived back at the office, they summoned their team for a briefing on the case.

‘Good afternoon, team,’ Sly said. ‘I am going to get straight to the point here. A girl of eighteen years old called Amelia Myer has gone missing from her home down Mayflower Street. She is Caucasian, a fair build – not well built. She has dark brown hair, green eyes. She has a nose piercing as well as having each lobe of her ears pierced. When she was last seen, she was wearing her work uniform – dark blue jeans and a red t-shirt. Her parents won’t tell us where she worked or anything about her employer, but we will soon find out.’

‘She also has her mobile phone with her.’ Hokey mentioned. ‘Sly and I will be tracing her mobile phone and her parent’s phones. We are not aware of Amelia taking any credit cards with her, but that is not to say that she has not got cash on her person. We will be checking security footage from the town cameras. Also, some of you will be dispatched to the Myer residence to obtain Amelia’s laptop and any other items that may be of interest to our investigation. As we speak, forensics should already be at the Myer residence. If you come into contact with Grant and/or Evelyn Myer, please say as little to then as possible.’

‘There was no obvious sign of forced entry, but something very untoward has occurred in that house. As far as the search for Amelia Myer goes, we want it done methodically. The search will be conducted in grid form. Once one grid has been fully and thoroughly searched, we will move onto the next grid. On your assigned mobile phones, there will be all the information you need – photos of the Myer family. However, files and classified information will be kept here.’

Sly and Hokey’s team nodded, extricated themselves from their seats and immediately started their work.

‘Right,’ said Hokey, ‘we have some mobile phones to trace.’

Chapter two

1

Sly and Hokey made their way quickly to the Computer Forensics Department or IT Department as Hokey liked to call it, so they could see if the GPS tracking technology was able to track Amelia’s whereabouts using her mobile phone. The only issue was that in order for this to work, Amelia’s phone had to be switched on, not to mention have a decent amount of charge left.

‘The only location I am getting is down Mayflower Street,’ Rob, one of the Computer Forensics team said. ‘Either her phone has run out of battery power or she’s switched it off. Or,’ he paused to take a breath, ‘the phone has been thrown away – abandoned. I’ll keep tracing it; she probably just switched it off. Teenagers can’t stand having their phones off for too long.’

‘Okay,’ replied Sly. ‘Keep pushing hard, Rob. We need to find this girl alive. Can you pull up her phone records?’

‘Sure, just give me a minute,’ Rob said furiously typing and clicking buttons. ‘Here it is. It looks like the last communication she had with someone was at 4:03pm yesterday.’

‘Can you retrieve the number and match it with a person or even a location?’ Hokey asked, hopeful.

‘I can match the number she was conversing with to a location.’ Rob said typing and clicking the mouse furiously. ‘Ah, yep, here we go. The computer’s thinking...Amelia was conversing someone who was down Central Coven Avenue, then moved to Ashlyn Street, ah man, back to Central Coven and then to Bexzel Street. From my GPS, it looks like they live on or have settled on Bexzel Street now.’

‘Can you give us a house number?’ Sly asked as he and Hokey prepared to leave for Bexzel Street.

‘I can do better than that,’ Rob said. ‘I can give you directions when you’re driving. Just put this in your ear and you’ll be able to hear what I say.’ Rob handed an ear piece each to Sly and Hokey.

‘You’re a legend, Rob!’ Sly said as he and Hokey ran to their police car.

2

‘Do you think she will be there?’ Hokey asked Sly, hopefully.

Sly was silent. Then after a while said, ‘We will find her. We have to.’

They sped up Maxwell Road, swung a left on to Ashlyn Street. Even though they were moving at speed, the drive seemed to be taking them forever and a day. Finally they reached the end of Ashlyn Street and turned right on to Bexzel Street. Rob was instructing Sly to drive at the legal speed limit so he would not arouse suspicion. Sly begrudgingly did as he was told. Some of the houses down Bexzel Street were okay, but once you passed Bexzel Street Cemetery, that’s when the scenery went downhill. Both Sly and Hokey were both secretly hopeful that they wouldn’t have to venture beyond the cemetery; that was until Rob said, ‘Keep going. It’s beyond the cemetery. The dot hasn’t moved, so the person is stationary.’

A horrible thought then crossed Hokey’s mind: what if this joker just left Amelia’s phone in some random place to send them on a wild goose chase? But then another voice said: what if Amelia is there? What if this leads us to someone that knows something about her whereabouts? It’s much better to investigate every possibility – even if the odds are logically stacked against you.

‘We should be coming to the house soon,’ Sly said

Hokey nodded in agreement – they were nearing the end of Bexzel Street now.

‘Stop just outside this one,’ Rob said. ‘This is the location of the mobile phone that was communicating with Amelia yesterday afternoon. Don’t take out your earpieces, either. If anything goes wrong, I can hear and will call for backup.’

‘Thanks Rob,’ Hokey replied, gratefully. ‘Sly and I are going in now.’

The house that they stopped outside wasn’t the nicest looking house on the street. The lawn was starting to yellow due to the hot summer that